Saturday, December 12, 2009

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

I got myself in a good warm up and then quickly changed into my stealthy speed suit and stayed warm.

The water wasn't as cold as I had wished but not too bad.

I didn't false start.

My goggles stayed on! (phew)

I paced myself accordingly and tried to stay RELAXED and as EFFICIENT in the wateras possible.

My feet or legs did not cramp up in my sausage encased speed suit.

In summery, I had a great swim! It won't go with out criticism in that I REALLY REALLY, need to be more efficient with flip turning and when things heat up, i can barely make it to the flags to get some air. Not sure how to fix that.

I had a seed time of 11:40. I started in Heat 3 for the women in Lane 7. The heats went fast to slow and alternated with men and women's heats. After a good clean dive, I noticed during the first 150, everyone near me that I could see were out ahead of me and I just kept telling myself FOCUS ON YOU AND WHAT YOU ARE DOING. It was hard. I thought, "shit.. am I starting out too slow here??? " FOCUS YOU DUMMY, GET THOSE BLINDERS ON.

So I mentally*whacked* myself in the head and proceeded to pay attention to what was going onin Lane 7,( the pink Diva capped girl sporting freshly painted Christmas toes)

Right after the 500 mark, I had to really work on staying relaxed. I told myself to get through this next 100 and then CRANK out the remaining 200 AS HARD AS YOU CAN.

My friend Katie was my card turner and at the last 50 I heard the bell ringing as I hit the wall!!I was leading our heat??????? No way.......

Yes way! I cranked out my last 50 looking for that red card knowing I had just 25 meters to go.I was ready to pop an eyeball.

FINALLY the wall! I hung on the gutter for what seemed like 10 minutes, looked up to see my time

Lane 7/ 1/ 11:15

PR in the 800 for me. Yay.

Thanks for all of your very nice messages! They got me PSYCHED to go out andjust GET IT DONE!!!!!

NICE WORK!!!! You swam in the same heat as my good friend Catherine Payson... Wish I had been there to see it! Love your nails, too. Great Swim. Those suits are awesome, huh?I swam the next two days--the sprint stuff. super fun. :) I was sad you didn't do that too!! What masters team do you swim for? I need one...

Sah-weet! I can totally relate to the eyeballs popping out of your head feeling upon oxygen deprivation from flip-turning while going hard. Ugh! Congrats on a new PR and btw, FLOVE your cutie toenails. How do you keep the polish on in the pool? I've pretty much given up since it all seems to come off and look like crapola within a week after getting my toes done.